SCEC Award Number 16145 View PDF
Proposal Category Individual Proposal (Integration and Theory)
Proposal Title Quantification of acceptable ranges of GMSV Gauntlets for validation of simulated ground motion for engineering practice
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Farzin Zareian University of California, Irvine
Other Participants
SCEC Priorities 6e, 6c, 6b SCEC Groups GMSV
Report Due Date 03/15/2017 Date Report Submitted 11/16/2017
Project Abstract
 This research focuses on enhancing the current ground motion simulation validation methodologies and utilizes steel Special Moment Resisting Frame (SMRF) buildings and Ordinary Bridge models for that purpose. The target is to quantify the sensitivity of Decision Variables (DVs) to Ground Motion Simulation Validation (GMSV) gauntlets. DVs are parameters that help engineers in decision making and proportioning structural system members (e.g., beams and columns). In this research, DVs include inter-story drift ratio for buildings and column drift ratio for ordinary bridges. The study shows that it is difficult to pick any one intensity measure to completely define any structure, as different structures respond differently to different IMs. While the majority of the bridge’s EDP could be described with the RZZ parameters, Sa was required to describe more of the building’s EDPs; even between the 2-story and the 12-story buildings, there is a variation on how well the EDP can be described by Sa.
Intellectual Merit This project systematically quantifies the relative importance of RZZ parameters in describing simulated ground motion waveforms for comparison with recorded ground motions. This project is one step forward in identifying structure-independent ground motion validation gauntlets that can be utilized by SCEC community for GMSV purposes.
Broader Impacts The objectives of this research are in line with the objectives of the Technical Activity Group (TAG) on Ground Motion Simulation and Validation (GMSV) under the Earthquake Engineering Implementation Interface (EEII) Interdisciplinary Focus Area. It is envisioned that this research can increase the use of simulated ground motions in engineering applications. This research can also help in updating ground motion simulation models such that the next version of such models are capable of simulating ground motions whose effects on engineered structures are much closer to what is estimated from using naturally recorded ground motion.
Exemplary Figure Figure 24: 2-story and 12-story Regression Equation Outputs for Arias Intensity